find a gun. Then he would have to find Pellecchia.
He needed to move fast. He needed to get hold of some money. He needed to find Anthony Rizzi.
Samantha set the flowers on top of the television in the living room as she read the card.
Carol said, “I don’t think they would dare do anything about your job after what happened.”
“It’s policy,” Samantha said. “We’re not supposed to get involved with guests staying at the hotel. I know girls who were fired for it.”
“Duh, you were shot,” Carol said.
“How are you doing?” Samantha asked. She lowered herself onto the couch, felt something hard under her leg, and moved to one side. She started to reach between the couch pillows when she was distracted by Carol’s sniffling.
“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Carol said. “I should’ve known Beau would find me there sooner or later. I tried to get him to follow me. I found him online, I think.”
“Forget it,” Samantha said. “He’s probably hiding in Canada someplace now. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m in California,” Carol said. “I’m heading to San Diego tomorrow and then I’ll decide whether to move farther north.”
“I want you to stay in touch.”
“Of course I will. Any word from Charlie?”
“Please, I feel like an ass about that.”
“You shouldn’t,” Carol said. “He’ll call as soon as he feels it’s safe.”
“Unless that was his excuse to blow me off.”
“I’m sure he was just concerned about getting you more involved. He’s trying to protect you.”
“And maybe I moved too fast,” Samantha said.
“You did what comes natural,” Carol said. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“I’m not so sure,” Samantha said.
“He would’ve run away before he got involved with you, baby.”
“Maybe,” Samantha said. “And maybe I’m what he’s running from.”
Chapter 55
Beau grew tired of waiting for his car. He checked his watch and saw it was close to half an hour since he last saw anybody in the shop. He started his way around the garage when Beau spotted two men heading his way.
“Hey, either of you guys seen that big fella was working the counter before?” he yelled.
The two men didn’t answer. They continued walking toward Beau.
“Fellas?” Beau said. “Either of you see -”
A large hand suddenly muffled Beau’s mouth. He turned his head to the left as a kick knocked the air from his lungs. He rolled up on the ground as the two men tied his legs and hands with a rope.
“What the fuck?” Beau whispered just before a dirty cloth was jammed inside his mouth.
Jerry Lercasi was back with his girlfriend in the apartment above Vive la Body. He was getting head while he waited for an important telephone call. Things were getting out of control in Las Vegas. He was hoping something outside the city might help his upcoming situation with the law.
When the phone finally rang, Lercasi pushed Brenda away as he stood up to take the call. It was a message from associates in Laughlin about a package that had been delivered.
Brenda crawled to where Lercasi was standing and tried to keep him hard. He was distracted and lost his erection.
Brenda stood up in frustration. When he was finished with the call, she told Lercasi to blow himself.
“Whatuo;m no wrong with you?” he asked. “I had to take that call.”
She was half naked. She grabbed a black Vive la Body T-shirt and pulled it over her head.
“It was important,” Lercasi repeated. He was still holding the receiver in his right hand.
She lit a cigarette and pointed at the phone. “Why don’t you call back whoever was so important and ask them to take care of it. Because I’m not starting over now. No way.”
Lercasi remembered a call he had to make and started to dial. He paged the organized crime detective Iandolli as Brenda stormed out of the apartment.
Charlie checked out of the Bellagio as soon as the detective dropped him off. He read a map of Las Vegas in the back of a taxi as he headed south on the Strip. He stopped at a Hertz, where he rented a Buick Le Sabre for sixty- five dollars with unlimited mileage for two days.
He looked for a cheap motel in a tour book at the Hertz. He would stay in Las Vegas another few nights. He wasn’t sure yet whether he could involve Samantha in his life. He wanted to. He missed her already.
He found a small place in the tour book and called the South of Vegas Motel to book the room for two days. It would cost him twenty-five dollars per night, he learned. Cable was extra. So were the pay-per-view movies the motel offered.
Twenty-five minutes later, he signed the register. He grabbed a Diet Coke from a soda machine in the office and hurried out to his car. He drove the Buick to the far end of the lot, closer to his room. He grabbed his suitcase from the backseat and hustled up the stairs. When he was inside the tiny room, he felt the heat of the afternoon desert sun.
Charlie looked at himself in the small cracked mirror across from the bed. He had lost weight the past few days. He looked tired and disheveled. He looked crazy, he thought.
At sunset, Lercasi discussed helping his friends back East with his attorney at a law office in Spring Valley. The two men sat across a coffee table in the office with a ceiling-to-floor view of the mountains. Lercasi’s lawyer was well tanned. He wore an expensive Italian suit and lots of gold. Lercasi was dressed in a red-and-white workout suit.
“I don’t know that I should be having this conversation with you,” Lercasi’s lawyer said.
“The fuck does that mean? You’re my lawyer.”
“Because I can be disqualified from any future representation of you. The same as what happened in New York. The government had somebody they couldn’t beat, they found reasons to disqualify him from litigation. They can call it conflict of interest or whatever they want. They’re the government.”
“They can disqualify you for having a vowel in your name,” Lercasi said. “It ever comes to that, they don’t need a reason.”
Lercasi’s lawyer was fidgety in his chair. “Well, there is something else,” he said. “About me representing you in that way. What happened to Mr. Fein, specifically?”
Lercasi nodded. “I can respect that,” he said.
“Well?”
“Mr. Fein was involved in my day-to-day business. Accounting, real estate. Business parties. He represented my business, some of it. You represent me. Therein is the difference.”
His lawyer thought about it a moment. “What is it you want?”
“I need a courier to go see another lawyer back East. It doesn’t have to be you, but it should be somebody from this office, to give it some weight.”
“What is it that needs weight?”
Lercasi leaned forward to spea “One of Angelo Vignieri’s captains has a deal with the DEA,” he said. “Put it however diplomatically you want, but that’s the message has to get to this other lawyer back East. For his client’s best interest, of course.”
“Of course,” his lawyer said.
Chapter 56
Cuccia considered running. Agent Thomas was busy arguing with two other agents in the hospital parking lot.
